LABOUR chiefs are unrepentant about the party’s descent into “class warfare” tactics this week.

A party political broadcast mocking the Tories as callous toffs who relish closing hospitals and punishing disabled people was widely panned, with even some Labour MPs privately describing the effort as “crass”.

Concern is growing in Labour ranks that the party is returning to the crude “bash-the-rich” propaganda that was tried briefly under Gordon Brown’s leadership with predictably disastrous electoral results.

Yet Ed Miliband’s aides are convinced the three-and-half-minute black-and-white spoof released as part of their campaign for this month’s European elections was a tactical triumph.

They maintain that the film was the first salvo in a sustained onslaught in which the Conservative Party is not the primary target.

Rather their plan is to pillory relentlessly Nick Clegg and the hapless Lib Dems.

Much of what this Tory-led coalition has done is down to him and the voters need to know that

A senior Labour

A senior Labour source told me: “There will be a lot more of this. Nick Clegg has to be held to account.

"Much of what this Tory-led coalition has done is down to him and the voters need to know that.”

Labour followed up their attack advertisement with a poster lampooning Mr Clegg and David Cameron as “two peas in a pod”.

It was a propaganda blast that misfired, given that it attacked the coalition’s increase on VAT while depicting groceries that do not carry the tax.

The blitz against the Lib Dems will be stepped up over the coming days.

Around the country this weekend Labour activists will be handing out “Lib Dem Lottery” scratch cards that reveal Mr Clegg’s broken promises along with circular leaflets that declare: “Tories and Lib Dems – two sides of the same coin.”

Attracting the votes of people who voted Lib Dem at the 2010 election is a crucial part of Mr Miliband’s blueprint for getting over the threshold of 10 Downing Street next year.

Alarmingly for the Tories it is a strategy that does appear to fit the current electoral arithmetic.

Polls have consistently suggested the Lib Dem vote is on course to slump from 24 per cent at the last election in 2010 to under 10 per cent at the next one in May 2015.

That means there could be more than two million former Lib Dem votes up for grabs at next year’s general election, held under a boundary system stacked heavily against the Tories.

Mr Clegg admitted earlier this week that the Lib Dems have to give up chasing the antiestablishment protest vote which has switched overwhelmingly to Ukip.

A pea in the pond: Nick Clegg is under attack by Labour [GETTY]

Senior Tories recognise that disillusioned Lib Dems are unlikely to move in that direction.

“Our best hope is that they will hold their noses and decide to stick with the Lib Dems after all because they cannot bear the thought of Miliband and Balls ruining the economy,” said one Tory source.

Yet while the strategy for grabbing power by bidding to win Lib Dem seats may have been carefully thought through by Mr Miliband’s inner circle the suspicion at Westminster is that the tactics that have been used so far are just too crude to succeed.

Few voters are likely to be taken in by lame jokes and poorly-acted caricatures.

And a growing number of Labour MPs are worried that cheap stunts and class-war rhetoric designed to appeal to vaguely Leftleaning types could end up repulsing millions of aspirational voters.

They warn that Labour needs positive policies to help families get on rather than slogans about squeezing the rich and punishing the bankers.

Mr Miliband sparked surprise this week by boasting about his “ intellectual self-confidence” compared with that of Mr Cameron.

But for all his clever ideas and strategic thinking the Labour leader is being warned by his more thoughtful colleagues not to treat the voters as stupid.

WE ARE NOT RACIST: Nigel Farage speaks up for Ukip [GETTY]

NIGEL Farage has launched a determined fight back against claims that the UK Independence Party rank and file is crammed with racists.

He stood shoulder to shoulder with dozens of black and ethnic minority Ukip candidates at a passionate rally on Wednesday night to make the point.

Several of them spoke emotionally about their own experiences of racial prejudice growing up in the UK and their anger at the way the party is being smeared as xenophobic by opponents.

And there were considerably more black and Asian faces among the Ukip supporters in the rally than among the hectoring and abusive crowd of Left-wing protesters outside.

“From this moment on, please do not ever call us a racist party. We are not a racist party,” Mr Farage said at the rally in a plea to the establishment and its allies in the media.

With polls suggesting the party is on course for a historic victory in the European elections in under a fortnight’s time Ukip’s enemies are unlikely to drop the smear or ease up on their quest to dig up unpleasant remarks made in the past by a few of the party’s candidates.

The attempt to tackle the racism charge head on this week highlighted an interesting shift in Ukip’s argument on the crucial issue of immigration.

At the rally Ukip economic spokesman Steven Woolfe insisted the anti-Brussels party had the most “ethical” border control policy of any party.

By introducing a points-based system that would assess all immigration applications on the basis of skills and seek to admit the brightest and the best Ukip’s proposals would end discrimination in favour of European Union citizens and against those from other parts of the world including the Commonwealth, he said.

Mr Farage returned to the theme on BBC One’s Question Time on Thursday, saying: “We shouldn’t be discriminating against people from India and New Zealand which we do at the moment because we have an open door to Romania and Bulgaria.”

Genuinely controlled immigration could bring a “net benefit” for Britain, he added.

The change in language could disappoint some voters who want to see a stop to all immigration to Britain and could even cost Ukip a small number of votes.

But that would be seen as a necessary sacrifice to make clear that Ukip is the “decent, respectable” party that Mr Farage insists it is.